Tom Onslow-Cole heads into the final three rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton next weekend determined to end the season with victory. The 20 year-old Team RAC driver, in his first season in the UK’s premier championship, has already tasted the victors champagne, at Snetterton, together with three other podium finishes.
As the season enters its final rounds, the New Malden youngster returns to one of his favourite circuits optimistic of a good result. Last time out at Knockhill, the youngster was disappointed to be excluded from the result of race one, in which he crossed the line fourth, after allegedly causing an incident which saw Vauxhall’s Fabrizio Giovanardi run wide onto the grass.
The exclusion effectively ended all chances of Tom repeating his win in Norfolk, or even a podium and he now looks to the final rounds more fired up than ever to finish the season on a high. “That first race at Knockhill ruined the whole weekend for me. I still maintain I was not responsible for the incident, but I’ve put all that behind me now and will focus on the weekend ahead.
“It’s been a long time out of the car and I just can’t wait to get back behind the wheel. I love the Thruxton circuit; it’s one of my very favourite tracks as it is such a challenging circuit. The atmosphere this weekend will be awesome. It’s the final three rounds, the championship’s not yet decided and now we have Alain Menu and Tom Coronel in the mix – it all adds up to what should be a classic race meeting.
“The circuit has been good to me in the past. I won there last year in Clios and took third in the other race, so I’ll be gunning for a repeat that’s for sure. Earlier this year at Thruxton, the meeting didn’t go quite as we’d hoped, we had a problem with the tyres in that the track is very abrasive and the tyres didn’t work well for rear-wheel-drive cars, but we’ve been out testing this week and now we’re fairly confident of a good result.”
A capacity crowd is expected at the Hampshire track, with the organisers already confirming that the grandstand sales are completely sold out. All three races will be televised and at 7.30 am on Sunday morning Channel 4 will commence its programme Racing Rivals which will show behind the scenes footage from the whole season starting with Brands Hatch and Rockingham, the venue for Tom’s first podium finish of the season.
Next weekend’s final rounds will kick off with two 40 minute free practice sessions at 09.30 and 12.10 on Saturday prior to the 30 minute official qualifying later that day at 15.10. The three races on Sunday take place at 11.00, 13.10 and 16.20 and will be shown live on ITV.
Championship positions after 27 rounds:
1 Jason Plato 265
2 Fabrizio Giovanardi 256
3 Gordon Shedden 188
4 Matt Neal 172
5 Colin Turkington 171
6 Darren Turner 155
7 Mat Jackson 132
8 Mike Jordan 127
9 Tom Chilton 115
10 Tom Onslow-Cole 107
